Employees as Corporate Influencers: Exploring the Impacts of Parasocial Interactions on Brand Equity and Brand Outcomes

Due to the disruption of the media industry, strategic communication has become increasingly important for media companies to build intangible organizational assets such as brand equity. Against this backdrop, this article sheds light on the potential role of journalists to act as corporate influencers who shape readers' perceptions through parasocial interactions. An online survey was conducted, recruiting 461 participants via purposive sampling. Partial least square path modeling was conducted to test hypotheses. The results show that readers develop parasocial interactions with journalists. In turn, parasocial interactions increase the brand equity of the media company they work for. Furthermore, brand equity is positively related to the frequency with which readers use the company's website, as well as their intention to subscribe to the news magazine. No significant differences between followers and non-followers of journalists on social media were found. This article contributes to a better understanding of the role of employees for strategic communication. Specifically, we enrich the literature on employees as communicators by demonstrating their impact on external stakeholders. Furthermore, while research on influencers has been focused on the selling policy of companies, this study demonstrates their impacts on brand equity as a strategic organizational asset.